Springfield daily republic. [volume] (Springfield, O. [Ohio]) 1887-1888, 1887-07-05
THE NEWSPAPERS OF FRANCE.
The Opinions Of the Two Mr.. Fuiitzers.
Decidedly Different Ideas.

was in an English tailor shop the other
morning and the proprietor. as a crowning
argument in favor of his sartoTial pro
ductions. produced pair Of trousers for
Mr. Pulitzer The size Of the trousers
attracted my attention, and n little lnyes-
tigatiun led to the interesting discovery
that there were two Mr.. Pulit2crS in
Paris, and that while Mr.. Joseph Pulitzer
has been living III ST.. fe at the Hotel BrlS-
tol with his line apartment, his courier,
etc, Mr.. Albert Pulitzer. of The New
York Morning Journal. has also been llV-
ing in state, though more quietly, at the
Grand Hotel. he too having his fine apart
meut and his courier, which all goes TO
show: First, that is a great thing TO have
a large circulation and second, that the
Paris correspondent OF The Morning Jour
nal does not write the society notes III The
Galgnani's Messenger.
The opinions of these two eminent jour
nalists on the newspapers Of France are
of course most interesting. Mr.. Joseph
Pulitzer spoke as follows on the subject;
You want my opinion on French news
papers Well, | can give il 10 You vers
quickly | think il is simply disgracefai
the kind of thing which they produce
here. They are. newspapers in name, but
newspapers with the news left ont. They
print neither home news nor foreign news,
in fact they print nothing but stories and
essays. They have no enterprise, Why
this late disaster to the Champagne at
Havre was hardly noticed by them. |
had to get the details from the scanty
little English papers pointing TO the
Galignani and the Morning News. Now
an American newspaper which understood
its business would have had a man on the
spot by the very first train to interview
the officers. the captain and the pas
sengers, 10 get photographs of the scene,
etc. and TO send of complete account
by telegraph, regardless of expense. No,
sir, | don't think much of French news
papers, and, by the way, ! don't think
much more of their English rivals
Mr. Albert Pulitzer has decidedly diff
ferent ideas on the same question. Il
know that it is the fashion, he said, so
condemn French journals on the ground
that they are deficient i'll what we call
news OF course it is evident that in
this respect they are long way behind us;
but | attribute ii not 10 any lack Of enter
prise on the part of editors and proprle-
tors-far from it-but to the fact that
they recognize tnat the general demand Is
for something quite different People in
France have not got that terrible thirst for
news which consumes Us al home; they
are not at all in hurry 10 know about
accidents and crimes before il is neces-
ssry. and even then they don't want
great mass of sickening details. In many
ways their tastes are more elevated than
ours. For. example, The Figaro Will PRINT
two columns on IA new play by Alexandra
Dumas, and will employ one of the most
distinguished literary men in the country
To write the criticism. There is another
great difference; in France all the great
writers contribute 10 the newspapers, and
these men are paid as much as $4,000 to
Si2, 900 a year. The result is that IA first
class French newspaper becomes really Il
vehicle for the transmission of the highest
order OF literary. scientific and artistic
thought, and certainly that is very much
more than we can say of our American
papers, even the best of them. Paris
Cor Philadelphia Times.